Labor trafficking scheme reaped millions

Indian welders and pipe fitters say they were tricked into taking jobs in U.S. shipyards with false promises of green cards in exchange for hefty fees. They then had to pay $1,000 a month to live in shoddy "man camps." less

Indian welders and pipe fitters say they were tricked into taking jobs in U.S. shipyards with false promises of green cards in exchange for hefty fees. They then had to pay $1,000 a month to live in shoddy "man ... more

Photo: Courtesy Of Chandra Bhatnagar

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Indian welders and pipe fitters say they were tricked into taking jobs in U.S. shipyards with false promises of green cards in exchange for hefty fees. They then had to pay $1,000 a month to live in shoddy "man camps." less

Indian welders and pipe fitters say they were tricked into taking jobs in U.S. shipyards with false promises of green cards in exchange for hefty fees. They then had to pay $1,000 a month to live in shoddy "man ... more

Photo: Photo Courtesy Sutherland Asbill

Labor trafficking scheme reaped millions

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Michael Pol was still a police officer when he first began moonlighting as an international labor broker, importing hundreds of Indians to a New Orleans shipyard through a U.S. government guest-worker program.

The politically connected Mississippi lawman set up a company with himself as CEO, and quickly pulled in between $1 million and $2 million in fees.

"It was more money than I had ever seen in my life," Pol later told lawyers in a court-ordered deposition.

In 2006 and 2007, Pol imported 590 skilled welders and pipe fitters to shipyards in Texas and Mississippi through the federal government's H2B program, forging a highly lucrative partnership with a flashy, Mumbai-based businessman and a New Orleans immigration lawyer, according to documents connected to interwoven federal civil lawsuits filed on behalf of the Indian workers.

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The workers claim the labor recruiters tricked them into paying nonrefundable fees of $10,000 to $20,000 each, and promised green cards that were never delivered. After they arrived in the United States, workers were then forced to pay $1,000 a month to live in substandard "man camps" by the U.S. company that hired the recruiters, Signal International, federal lawsuits filed on behalf of the workers allege.

Cases in Texas

Those lawsuits - including two filed in Texas in late May - allege that Pol and his partners made at least $5 million in the alleged scam, described as possibly one of the largest labor trafficking operations ever uncovered in the United States.

"The Indian workers who came to this country through Signal's recruitment effort were skilled laborers seeking opportunity," said Daniel Werner, senior supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing the Indian workers. "Instead, they were forced into a type of modern-day indentured servitude."

Poor oversight charged

So far, 10 U.S. law firms and five nonprofits have banded together to locate and represent Indian workers who allegedly were victimized, though many workers were deported or left the United States.

The first related civil cases were filed in Louisiana in 2008 after workers staged a dramatic protest at Signal's Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard. The latest civil lawsuits were filed in the Eastern District of Texas on and in the Southern District of Mississippi.

"We have been fighting in the courts for over five years. We hope that the new cases will bring us one step closer to justice for all the Indian workers," said Kurian David, the lead plaintiff in the original case.

More cases are expected later this year. These cases illustrate "in shocking detail the failures in the guest worker programs," said Daniella Landers, whose Houston firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP is representing 33 of the Indian workers.

Critics charge that the federal government's H2B program lacks sufficient oversight and allows brokers to bilk unwitting, hopeful immigrants out of hard-earned money without consequences.

The program, meant for temporary or seasonal workers, imports up to 66,000 immigrants annually. Texas has more H2B workers than any other state - 12,344, according to the latest figures.

Human rights attorneys allege the program has been used as a vehicle for exploitation by recruiters and employers who can cross lines into illegal labor trafficking by using threats to collect debts and by charging astronomical fees.

Werner described it as a "free-for-all - it's just a totally unregulated system."

The immigration reform bill that recently passed the U.S. Senate would expand the H2B program by exempting returning workers from the current 66,000 cap.

The bill includes amendments designed to strengthen worker protections and would require disclosure of additional information to workers, including job descriptions and wages, said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research with the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C.

But Costa and others say the current proposal lacks sufficient whistle-blower protections, which they consider critical since the program essentially binds workers to employers.

Katrina opened door

Hundreds of pages of depositions and emails detail the operations of labor recruiters in the Signal case.

Pol and New Orleans attorney Malvern "Mal" Burnett declined comment directly or through their attorneys. Their business partner, Sachin Dewan, did not respond to an email to his firm, and his attorney also declined comment.

Pol, a former police officer, for a time served as spokesman for the Ocean Shores Police Department and as an assistant for a Mississippi Transportation Department commissioner. Pol cooked up a deal to import Indian workers after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 demolished many of the Gulf's offshore platforms and left the region's skilled shipbuilders scattered and homeless, legal documents show.

'Mafioso' held passports

He repeatedly traveled to India to help recruit welders and pipe fitters for his client, Signal International, at shipyards in Pascagoula and in Orange, Texas. He and his partners advertised and ran seminars all across India where they promised green cards in exchange for hefty fees, court documents show.

The role of bill collector fell to Dewan, an India-based labor broker nicknamed "Mafioso" by his partners, according to emails and depositions. For his deposition, Dewan wore a black silk shirt and a signature diamond pinky ring. He kept each applicant's passport at his office in an exclusive suburb until final payments were made. There he required each worker to deposit his share of the fee in cash in a chest that resembled a dumpster.

A series of emails shows that Burnett repeatedly instructed Dewan to ensure that his clients paid.

In Feb. 3, 2006, Burnett told Dewan via email: "Mafiaso: Tell them to pay up or we will substitute with willing candidates. What (sic) can't you make the dolts understand?"

A few months later, Burnett instructed Dewan to "persuade" a worker who had stopped payment on a money order or "I will see to it his visa gets mysteriously revoked."

In another email, Dewan was ordered to deny a refund requested by another worker whose father was dying of cancer.

"This is not reason to stop payment or back out on our agreement. We did the work we need to get paid," Burnett wrote.

Stuck in 'man camps'

The trio allegedly protected their profits by collecting final payments and contracts only hours before shipping recruits off to the United States on prepaid flights.

Once the workers arrived at shipyards in Orange and Pascagoula in 2006 and 2007, Signal required them to pay $1,000 a month to live in substandard "man camps" - one located on a lead-contaminated waste dump, according to court documents.

Signal declined comment on the latest lawsuits. But an attorney for Signal previously told the Chronicle that officials were initially unaware of the recruiters' high fees and false promises. Company officials, however, soon learned of the problems from Indian workers who complained after arriving in the United States, according to emails the company produced as part of the lawsuits.

EEOC gets involved

Signal's treatment of the workers resulted in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filing a federal lawsuit in 2011 alleging that the company illegally discriminated against the Indian employees by charging mandatory fees for substandard housing and by retaliating against whistle-blowers. That case remains stalled in federal court.

None of the labor recruiters has faced criminal charges for their roles in the alleged scheme.

Back in Mumbai, Dewan has faced enforcement action - a temporary suspension of his business license - by the Indian government in response to workers' complaints, records show.

Burnett still practices immigration law in New Orleans and has faced no public disciplinary action.